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PART 2

CONDITIONS FOR PROVIDING SERVICES

29-27-201. Vote - referendum.

(1) Before a local government may engage or offer to engage in providing cable television service, telecommunications service, or advanced service, an election shall be called on wether or not the local government shall provide the proposed cable television service, telecommunications service or advanced service.

It's not nonsense, and the Snopes link that you gave only pertains to this specific case in Oregon. There are, in fact, laws on state level that make it illegal to specifically collect rainwater on your property. I have no idea if any are in California, but they certainly exist in Colorado, for example: "unless you own a specific type of exempt well permit, you cannot collect rainwater in any other manner, such as storage in a cistern or tank, for later use".

It's CO law in CO that made the rule, not federal law. So blaming others for your local politicians is a bit silly. http://water.state.co.us/DWRIP... (warning PDF, and all that) http://www.denverwater.org/Abo...

So CO made CO's problem. They are banning local people from catching water because they want to sell water for a profit, not because of CA, NV, AZ, NM, TX, NE, or OK.

Actually, in much of the western US it is illegal to collect the rainwater that falls on your roof because there are people downstream from you that have pre-existing rights to that water. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... and http://water.state.co.us/SURFA...

Well I guess they are not counting the cloud seeding that's been going on in the mid-west. I know Colorado and Kansas both have programs since that the area I live in and it occasionally hit the news.

http://cwcb.state.co.us/water-...weathermodificationprogram.aspx

I was looking at USGS stream data last night and this morning. Colorado DOW

Boulder Creek (the river running through Boulder) is normally running at 50-100 CFS (ft.3/sec) at this time of year. Last night it was flowing at over 5400 CFS, and this morning when I looked it was still over 5000.

For comparison's sake, that is about 30% more volume than is currently running down the Colorado River at the Utah state line.

Other streams in the Front Range are at similar biblical levels. Last measurement on the Cache La Poudre were nearing 6000. Data simply shows "E" at the moment (value exceeds maximum). Big Thompson was around 5000, but also currently shows no current data.

What we have right now are a handful of typically small streams that have transformed into Colorado River sized flows, all dumping into the same drainage system, the South Platte River.

Folks in Nebraska might want to start sandbagging.

Add in rock dust, kelp or worm castings then see what they tests show. Those things don't have a lobby so they aren't considered important.

The US Department of Agriculture is very concerned about soil health and productivity. Most farms today must operate with an approved conservation plan, and any good farmer uses soil tests to determine what and how much nutrients to add. Spreading crushed rock or seaweed without testing both the soil and the amendment is like adding some mystery substance to your car's engine without even checking the dipstick first.

Why are Leukemia, prostrate and ovary cancer happening at a significantly (measurable) higher rate in Colorado? It's not a fair question just as the original post's strawman is invalid. The level in Colorado isn't safe because it's natural. Given the slightly better lifestyles measurable in lower obesity rates, one would 'expect' Colorado to be slightly better than average except for melanoma because of the thinner atmosphere/UV radiation.

http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/pp/cccr/1997-2007/CIC9707%20First%20Half%20(web).pdf

Would media covering bad places to live ever of that nature be tolerated excluding political motivation or a disaster event? There is a consistency in how information is filtered. There is a natural tendency for the media to keep a wet finger in the air to know which way the wind is blowing. The blowback from standing against the wind and being wrong is far riskier than standing with the wind and the wind being wrong.

In 2010 Colorado Senate Bill 09-080 established a program to allow rainwater collection for anyone who meets certain requirements and registers for a permit, there may be further developments along those lines.

I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted for rainwater collection, and they sell special rainwater collection barrels at garden centers all over the state. It is technically illegal, so my water barrels are hidden from the street just in case.

The consequences of such an event shouldn't be ignored.

And they weren't. End of story.

No, *not* end of story. They still launch RTGs, in spite of the real risks involved. They didn't "ignore" the risks completely (they did shield the reactors), but they still went ahead with these launches, even though there are risks involved.

Yes, end of story! Read up on RTG, start with the wikipedia article, especially the part about when a rocket blev up on the launch pad and the RTG was thrown in a nice parabola into the ocean. There was no leakage, it survived and it was reused on a later flight. Since the amount of plutonium in them is really small, they can be engineered *really* sturdy, and they are. They are designed to survive a launch pad explosion and every other possible disaster. Oh, and please stop using the word "reactor", they're not reactors.

Everything else you wrote is either wrong or completely irrelevant. There are no lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima that can be applied to RTGs, and no analogies between them can be drawn except for ones comparing apples with spoons.

The lessons are that you can't engineer away disaster. Not a single thing ever invented is disaster-proof (in fact, there have been some notable "disaster-proof" inventions famously succumbing to disaster. Raise your hand if you can name two). Nuclear reactors are apt examples because they involve severe effects when things go wrong. Fukushima and Chernobyl suffered meltdowns. Something which RTGs cannot do, but they dispersed radioactive material (*especially* Fukushima), which RTGs very much can do.

Of course you can engineer away disaster! We do it all the time. The problem is that you have to draw the line somewhere, but since RTGs are small and light-weight, they're much easier to design to be fail safe.

RTGs don't work even remotely like a nuclear reactor of any type, well-engineered, poorly-engineered, or otherwise.

First off, that's absolutely false. They *are* nuclear reactors. However, I'll cut you some slack on that and assume you meant that they aren't similar in danger to traditional large-scale nuclear power plants. This is true, but I've never claimed otherwise.

No, they're NOT nuclear reactors. If that were true, a smoke detector would qualify as a nuclear reactor. They contain a chunk of radioactive material that just sits there, safely encased. The decay heat is then used for generating electricity. Quoting wikipedia: "A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction". Go read up on nuclear physics.

It's not clear that plutonium is as dangerous as people have been told it is. In particular, there seems to be no scientific backing for the usual claim that a single inhaled particle is 'guaranteed' to cause cancer.

No one claimed a "single particle" would guarantee cancer. And the link you posted made the case that plutonium is very dangerous. Did you not read it first?

RTGs containing various radioisotopes have been damaged in accidents before with no apocalyptic consequences,.

No one is claiming "apocalyptic consequences". Speaking for myself alone, I'm talking about completely innocent bystanders being killed as a consequence of disaster, without being aware of any impact, decades later.

At least with most disasters, you know when you are at risk, the disaster is localized, and when it's over, it's over. Nuclear disasters have the distinction of not being so forthcoming with the aftermath.

When you build an RTG you use such a small amount of radioactive material that it's feasible to encapsulate it in a manner that renders it reasonably safe under any

The consequences of such an event shouldn't be ignored.

And they weren't. End of story.

No, *not* end of story. They still launch RTGs, in spite of the real risks involved. They didn't "ignore" the risks completely (they did shield the reactors), but they still went ahead with these launches, even though there are risks involved.

Everything else you wrote is either wrong or completely irrelevant. There are no lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima that can be applied to RTGs, and no analogies between them can be drawn except for ones comparing apples with spoons.

The lessons are that you can't engineer away disaster. Not a single thing ever invented is disaster-proof (in fact, there have been some notable "disaster-proof" inventions famously succumbing to disaster. Raise your hand if you can name two). Nuclear reactors are apt examples because they involve severe effects when things go wrong. Fukushima and Chernobyl suffered meltdowns. Something which RTGs cannot do, but they dispersed radioactive material (*especially* Fukushima), which RTGs very much can do.

RTGs don't work even remotely like a nuclear reactor of any type, well-engineered, poorly-engineered, or otherwise.

First off, that's absolutely false. They *are* nuclear reactors. However, I'll cut you some slack on that and assume you meant that they aren't similar in danger to traditional large-scale nuclear power plants. This is true, but I've never claimed otherwise.

It's not clear that plutonium is as dangerous as people have been told it is. In particular, there seems to be no scientific backing for the usual claim that a single inhaled particle is 'guaranteed' to cause cancer.

No one claimed a "single particle" would guarantee cancer. And the link you posted made the case that plutonium is very dangerous. Did you not read it first?

RTGs containing various radioisotopes have been damaged in accidents before with no apocalyptic consequences,.

No one is claiming "apocalyptic consequences". Speaking for myself alone, I'm talking about completely innocent bystanders being killed as a consequence of disaster, without being aware of any impact, decades later.

At least with most disasters, you know when you are at risk, the disaster is localized, and when it's over, it's over. Nuclear disasters have the distinction of not being so forthcoming with the aftermath.

When you build an RTG you use such a small amount of radioactive material that it's feasible to encapsulate it in a manner that renders it reasonably safe under any reasonably conceivable failure conditions. (Launch-pad explosions are not all that violent, frankly -- Kaku's major concern with Cassini was the Earth flyby, where a miscalculation would have exposed the RTG to much greater heat and higher mechanical stress.)

I'm not talking about "reasonably conceivable failure conditions". It's not the things you've planned for, it's the things you *didn't* plan for (which is why I brought up Fukushima and Chernobyl. Both were engineered for reasonable expectations, but they still failed because not everything that happens is reasonable).

The launch will probably be successful, and if it's not, it's very unlikely that anyone will die from plutonium exposure as a result. Those are the only guarantees you'll get from any honest engineer. They're good enough for me, they're good enough for you, and they're good enough for the good Dr. Kaku.

Who are you to speak for others? They may be good enough for you, but you have no business speaking on behalf of others.

I'm not saying that I'm particularly concerned about RTGs in general. I'm just trying to show that concern is reasonable. Engineer-types tend to mischaracterize anyone who dares question the safety of nuclear systems as some sort of crazy person.

The consequences of such an event shouldn't be ignored.

And they weren't. End of story.

Everything else you wrote is either wrong or completely irrelevant. There are no lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima that can be applied to RTGs, and no analogies between them can be drawn except for ones comparing apples with spoons.

RTGs don't work even remotely like a nuclear reactor of any type, well-engineered, poorly-engineered, or otherwise. It's not clear that plutonium is as dangerous as people have been told it is. In particular, there seems to be no scientific backing for the usual claim that a single inhaled particle is 'guaranteed' to cause cancer. RTGs containing various radioisotopes have been damaged in accidents before with no apocalyptic consequences,.

When you build an RTG you use such a small amount of radioactive material that it's feasible to encapsulate it in a manner that renders it reasonably safe under any reasonably conceivable failure conditions. (Launch-pad explosions are not all that violent, frankly -- Kaku's major concern with Cassini was the Earth flyby, where a miscalculation would have exposed the RTG to much greater heat and higher mechanical stress.)

The launch will probably be successful, and if it's not, it's very unlikely that anyone will die from plutonium exposure as a result. Those are the only guarantees you'll get from any honest engineer. They're good enough for me, they're good enough for you, and they're good enough for the good Dr. Kaku.

Amazingly enough, the ANG industry provided sources for their claims.

The big one is the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission report.

As explained below, Gasland incorrectly attributes several cases of water well contamination in Colorado to oil and gas development when our investigations determined that the wells in question contained biogenic methane that is not attributable to such development.

So the most dramatic part of the documentary, the tap water on fire, is a phenomenon that predates the fracking.

And here's the unethical interviews:

Finally, it should be understood that the COGCC Director, Dave Neslin, offered to speak with Gasland’s producer, Josh Fox, on camera during the filming of the movie. Because the issues are technical and complex and arouse concerns in many people, Director Neslin asked that he be allowed to review any material from the interview that would be included in the final film. Unfortunately, Mr. Fox declined. Such a discussion might have prevented the inaccuracies noted above.

Anyone seen a rebuttal to this? If there isn't a good one, meaning don't bother with "uh, the COGCC is owned by teh evel corps man!", that puts this as yet another bullshit documentary.

I do not think that anyone can sign away provisions of a State law? The Colorado Medical Marijuana Code specifically requires licensing authorities to keep location information of optional premises cultivation operation confidential.

12-43.3-310.Licensing in general.

14) THE LOCATION OF AN OPTIONAL PREMISES CULTIVATION OPERATION AS DESCRIBED IN SECTION 12-43.3-403 SHALL BE A CONFIDENTIAL RECORD AND SHALL BE EXEMPT FROM THE COLORADO OPEN RECORDS ACT. STATE AND LOCAL LICENSING AUTHORITIES SHALL KEEP THE LOCATION OF AN OPTIONAL PREMISES CULTIVATION OPERATION CONFIDENTIAL AND SHALL REDACT THE LOCATION FROM ALL PUBLIC RECORDS. NOTWITHSTANDING ANY PROVISION OF LAW TO THE CONTRARY, A STATE OR LOCAL LICENSING AGENCY MAY SHARE INFORMATION REGARDING THE LOCATION OF AN OPTIONAL PREMISES CULTIVATION OPERATION WITH A PEACE OFFICER OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY.

24-72-202. Definitions. As used in this part 2, unless the context otherwise requires:
(6) (b) "Public records" does not include:
(XI) Information security incident reports prepared pursuant to section 24-37.5-404 (2) (e) or 24-37.5-404.5 (2) (e); or
(XII) Information security audit and assessment reports prepared pursuant to section 24-37.5-403 (2) (d) or 24-37.5-404.5 (2) (d); OR
(XIII) STATE AND LOCAL APPLICATIONS AND LICENSES FOR AN OPTIONAL PREMISES CULTIVATION OPERATION AS DESCRIBED IN SECTION 12-43.3-403, C.R.S., AND THE LOCATION OF THE OPTIONAL PREMISES CULTIVATION OPERATION. (emphasis theirs)

Even if a cultivation operation waved their rights to privacy the city would still have to keep their locations confidential as per State Law. The poster's last comment about allowing law enforcement access is moot because that have access under part 14 of 12-43.3-310

DUCK SEASON.

http://wildlife.state.co.us/Hunting/SeasonDatesAndFees/WaterfowlDatesAndFees.htm

No it isn't its DUCK SEASON.

http://wildlife.state.co.us/Hunting/SeasonDatesAndFees/WaterfowlDatesAndFees.htm

CORSAR Card $3/year or $12/5 years. Alternately, just purchase a Fishing/Hunting License and you're automatically covered.

https://www.dola.state.co.us/dlg/fa/sar/sar_purchase.html

I disagree. You get arrested by a public law enforcement agency, have a public trial, and essentially no rights (depending on the crime).

While I'm not for the police state, I do believe that those convicted of a crime need to have their mugshots put up, especially for the following crimes:

DUI/DWI (doc, specifically Colorado's numbers but I imagine the true holds same in TN given the number of those in court for it repeatedly)
Pedophilia
Rape (pdf, specifically Deleware's statistics)
Murder (pdf, Washington state)
Scam/Con

People should know who you are and what your proclivities are. In the above cases you should expect no right to privacy after your first conviction (recidivism in these crimes is high, see links and also this document on recidivism).

I couldn't find numbers for scammers/con artists, though I'm sure they don't give up after their first arrest either. If anyone could find national averages it would be appreciated. All the above docs referred to national averages that I didn't turn up in my searches (search term: <crime> recidivism)

Helps if I screw up the link when I try to insert it (boo me, I forgot to preview).

Document referenced in above post is here.

The law in Colorado is changing, however:

http://www.water.state.co.us/pubs/pdf/RainWaterBills.pdf

Notice that there's a whole lot of other restrictions that still make it impossible for most people (anybody in the city, for example ... but my parents had a property that this could apply to), and you still can't use the water for gardens.

Another law is allowing for ten pilot project communities where rainwater collection will be allowed.

Intuit must really hate Colorado's Net File system. It's easy, relatively fast, and costs nothing. You still have to fill in the stupid forms, but it's 90% just copying the numbers from the equivalent lines of your federal tax forms. Paying Intuit extra to get the Colorado state version simply isn't worth the cost if your tax situation allows you to file online, and almost all individual returns can be filed online.

There was recently a case in Colorado where someone was getting fined for installing rainwater tanks. See, someone down the river owned the rights to the water that fell on their roof.

In case you don't believe it (there is a pdf there detailing bills to change the law to allow the tanks):

http://water.state.co.us/

Intrigued, I went and read that law.

It actually says that it is criminal to lie about the sandwich in an effort to disrupt the trade of said sandwich.

You can insult it, if it is true.
http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/olls/sl1994/sl_176.htm

It is unlawful for any person...knowingly to make any materially false statement, for the purpose of maintaining prices or establishing higher prices for the same, or for the purpose of limiting or diminishing the quantity thereof available for market, or for the purpose of procuring, or aiding in procuring, or establishing, or maintaining a monopoly in such articles or products, or for the purpose of in any manner restraining trade, any fruits, vegetables, grain, meats, or other articles or products ordinarily grown, raised, produced, or used in any manner or to any extent as food for human beings or for domestic animals.

I think this might make a food critic's job harder, but that is ok because their job is too damn easy anyways.

The state of colorado made attempts to be "ahead" of the curve when it came to an online presence (see also denvergov.com and the atrocity that is netfile; we were one of the first states to have online tax filing). Unfortunately they hired people who knew ass all about javascript (or proper DB handling) and no one knew enough to stop it in it's infancy. Now it has snowballed into something too costly to replace and too borked to simply repair.
I imagine someone told some user that ff was a security risk, rather than go into the technical details of why the site falls to crap on browser it was never tested for. Eventually, through what I like to call "the wiki effect" that same information got passed back as fact to the current web coders who promptly put up a notice to inform their end users.

Even still, fail.

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?c=Page&cid=1165692953912&pagename=OIT-New%2FOITXLayout
oit@state.co.us

(see http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1102967&cid=26584721)

in all seriousness, being deaf and blind is a small enough corner case overall, even if deafness and blindness aren't always caused independently of one another.

specific statistics are evidently not available in the relevant WP articles. Trying a general Google search:

http://gri.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php Deafness @ 0.1% to 0.2%-0.4%

http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/SD-Deafblind.asp
Lits deafblindees as 0.003% at birth

I assume you're talking about state/local government since you're discussing state/local issues. I don't know where you live, but in my state, legislative salaries are well below the state median income.

Federal legislators.. well that's a whole different story.

Huh?

I hate to parse, but I don't recognize any of those statements as having come from environmentalists.

Let's keep around the old trees and kill the young ones.

This overstatement is soooo very hyperbolic, it'd be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic. Old growth forests just don't exist anymore in the US, at least not to any appreciable degree. We've already cut down all the old trees. As a rule, environmentalists are against clearcuts and for sustainable forestry (more expensive to log, but keeps trees of various ages in a given acreage, offers a diverse understory, allows for some logs to lie where they fall and includes fire as part of the natural cycle). That said, it's recognized even by the environmentalist groups that Boise Cascade and other wood & pulp products producers either own or lease their lands outright and can ultimately tree-farm and clearcut to the extent they desire.

You can't clear out any of the underbrush, and we have to stop wild fires right away! (See California)

Wow. What a broad brush you've got there. Brush clearing has always been okay, even on public lands. Some states contract out for it, and others use -=gasp=- FIRE to clear it out. It's taken as a given that any property owner needs to clear brush from their houses. Did it every occur to you that natural wet-dry cycles can leave a lot of dry scrub when drought eventually sets in? In CO, we've got millions and millions of dead trees from pine bark beetle. Do you think those dead trees are all going to sit there? Hell no, the state's already permitting for logging most of it out, on millions of acres, as they should.

You can't have nuclear power plants, the waste contaminates the environment. (Breeder reactors anyone?)

I'm pretty sure that one of the founders of the Sierra club has come to endorse nuclear energy. Regardless, the main environmetalist objection to nuclear energy hasn't been in waste disposal anyway (almost all nuclear waste from power plants is held on-site) -- it's been with the way uranium is mined and what the tailings and ore processing leachfields do to rivers & the water table. Think this is whining? It's not. My state (Colorado) already has a superfund site to show for it... Uravan. Breeder reactor development got squashed 25 years ago, and it's only now being talked about again. Maybe the discussion is ready to re-open. I dunno.

Yep, it's those annoying enviro-hippies. They only exist to make things difficult. They just don't have any other reason for what they do other than being annoying. Oooooh, and they're sooooo annoying. Sooooo annoying that the entire US government has been able to ignore them for eight years. Ooooooh, they're soooooo powerful. Soooo scary! Like martians! Like clowns! BooogaBoogaBooogaBoogaBoooga!

Scared yet? Didn't think so. If you look closely at the issues you'll see that there's a balance to be struck between competing goals. The best outcomes are the ones that nobody's entirely satisfied with, but let things go forward. We can't achieve those outcomes if folks sit back, re-enforce their stereotypes, point fingers and blame blame blame, as you do.

Jeezus, what bunch of hand-wringing whiny pussies conservatives have become.

I have recently looked into this for a project and here is some information I found.

http://www.cyberciti.biz/howto/question/static/linux-ethernet-bonding-driver-howto.php
http://linux-ip.net/html/ether-bonding.html
http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Internet/ADSL-Bonding-How-To-and-Review.html

If you want to use two DSL modems, the best option for this is to use actual PCI ADSL modems, such as the Sangoma S518. If you are using a stand-alone DSL modem/router you will be limited greatly by the hardware whithin it. Using an internal DSL card you will be able to directly connect to the ATM network without using multiple bridges between multiple technologies. This allows layer 2 bonding (if your ISP supports MLPPP) instead of just layer 3 bonding. This means you can load balance each alternating bit (much like RAID striping), instead of just by connection (as in the case of server load balancing).

In the US you can find a CLEC (Competetive Local Exchange Carier) in your area. The Public Utilities Commision in your state should provide a list of registered CLECs. Call them all and ask if they provide Bonded ADSL links, and how much they charge. Ask them if they are just a Reseller CLEC or if they are actually a Facilities-Based Colocation CLEC.

CLECs are smaller phone companies. In almost all cases they are much more flexible and customer-oriented. Their support staff are usually the same guys that actually go out in the field and hook people up, not just some outsourced company in India or Pakistan.

CLECs come in two flavors, Reseller and Facilities-Based. Reseller CLECS are just marketing companies, they don't provide any services and will not be able to provide anything beyond that which your ILEC provides. Facilities-Based CLECs actually have facilities and rely on the ILEC as little as possible for providing services. In many cases the copper lines going to your house are all owned by the ILEC so they will need to lease the last leg of the circuit from the ILEC, or your location may be outside of the area they provide service so they will lease a digital circuit to your location and provide the ISP portion of the Internet connection.

On the Colorado Public Utilities Commision website they provide a PDF document of all CLECs in Colorado:
http://www.dora.state.co.us/PUC/telecom/TelcomProviders.htm
Your state should provide a list as well in some form.

If you are using Cable Internet and ADSL to provide even greater redundancy (I would strongly suggest this if reliability is more important that speed) the cable modems out there usually are just a bridge device and therefore you can use one ethernet port for the Cable modem and one ADSL card (or use an ethernet port for the dsl modem, but make sure to turn off NAT on the DSL modem/router and _route_ [not DMZ] all trafic to the real gateway/router/firewall box... don't ever double-NAT as it is hard to troubleshoot and causes all sorts of problems). When using two different providers you will only be able to do Layer 3 connection-based bonding.

Another method is to use a consumer router designed to provide layer 3 bonding and failover. The Linksys RV042 router supports these features, as well as QoS, VPN, etc.

For those of you who didn't RTFA, Gabriel has been appointed to the Colorado Court of Appeals, a position of not inconsiderable power. As such he will be one of 19 judges who have statewide jurisdiction to hear appeals from various trial courts, and can only be overturned by the state Supreme Court, or a Federal court should there be an issue that would give U.S. jurisdiction. Brochure "Colorado Courts at a Glance"

State appeals courts and Supreme courts, incidentally, are high enough in profile to gain the attention of a President who may want to fill a U.S. District Court vacancy. That's where things would get really scary.

I go hiking a lot in Colorado - so I purchased theColorado Outdoor Recreation Search and Rescue card.

In Colorado at least, if they have to come looking for you, you DO get billed for search costs. The card insures that search costs are paid by the fund, not you - and it costs only $12 every five years! They state on the page tself it's not insurance, but search costs can get expensive and this means a world of dfference for someone like you say who may not be well off.

You can't just have search costs be free, as that encourages reckless behavior. As long as you have some way to offset that for the needy or people that can plan ahead I don't see a problem with asking people to ay for searches.

Here's the regulations (469K pdf) governing the recertification. Neither the recertification nor the requirements is a surprise. This notice is nine months old and resulted from a Denver District Court order issued September 22, 2006 (Conroy v. Dennis, No. 06CV6072, Denver Dist. Ct.). With so much advance warning, no supplier has an excuse for failing certification. The fall-back position? According to the Coloradoan, "...[Larimer County Clerk Scott] Doyle said legislators might mandate a statewide mail-in election next year if problems with electronic voting machines cannot be fixed soon."

The Denver post article is wrong, and the URL to the report is wrong. The press release is at
http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/pressrel/coffman_completes_elec_voting_equip_tests_12-17-07.html
and the Certification page is at
http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=501

I couldn't find a confirmation in TFA as to which companies really had machines decertified. Our local (Boulder) paper reported this morning that of the four companies involved, only Premier/Diebold had *no* certification revoked. So that's rather at odds with the summary. Seeing that I couldn't see any confirmation of the summary's statement in TFA, I suspect that the local paper got it right.

Looks like your local paper got it right - according to this News Release from the Colorado Secretary of State, the results were:

Premier (formally known as Diebold) All voting equipment submitted for recertification passed.

Sequoia The optical scan devices, Insight and 400-C, used to count paper ballots both passed, but the electronic voting machines, the Edge II and the Edge II Plus, both failed due to a variety of security risk factors, including that the system is not password protected, has exposed controls potentially giving voters unauthorized access, and lacks an audit trail to detect security violations.

Hart The optical scan devices, eScan and BallotNow, both failed because test results showed that they could not accurately count ballots. The electronic voting machine, eSlate, passed.

ES&S The optical scan devices (M 100 and the M650) both failed because of an inability to determine if the devices work correctly and an inability to complete the testing threshold of 10,000 ballots due to vendor programming errors. The electronic voting machine (iVotronic) failed because it is easily disabled by voters activating the device interface, and the system lacks an audit trail to detect security violations.

Maybe the Colorado Sec of State should go read yesterday's 1,000 pages of bad news: Ohio e-voting report released article over on Ars Technica, then chat with the Ohio Sec of State about the EVEREST Testing Reports, which document high-risk issues with equipment from all the vendors that were tested (including Premier/Diebold).

Check your tax return. Making a cash donation means 100% of the money goes to your intended recipient, and it's tax deductible so you get a considerable discount on the donation. Money being fungible, your donatation effectively took that money away from the legislature's control at large and re-directed it where you think it should go. Colorado's yield from the lottery is less than 33% of sales (pdf warning, 2003 balance sheet is on page 25).

Staying with the Colorado example. For every dollar spent on lotto tickets, the expected payout is 50 cents, less 15 cents income tax due on the winnings (assuming 25% marginal tax rate to the IRS and 5% flat tax to the state; your tax rates may vary depending on where you live and where you buy the lotto tickets). You expect to pay 65 cents net to deliver less than 33 cents to the intended recipient, about 50% of what you spend.

Instead of buying a lotto ticket, why not make a cash donation? For every dollar you donate, the recipient gets the entire $1--three times more than a dollar spent on lotto. Your donation is tax deductible, so that same 30% tax rate means your net cost is only 70 cents. The recipient gets more than 140% of your net expenditure. Yes, donations are more than four times as effective as lotto games for funding eductaion.

Besides, you are more likely to die in a traffic accident driving to the store to buy a ticket than to win the grand prize.

"The only way to wwin--is not to play!",/i>

Hey! We have those! "Express Lanes". And guess what! NOBODY uses them! They'd rather sit in traffic than pay the extra tolls.

California (first sentence under "Ask questions when they ask...")
Colorado (two paragraphs under "Requests by Businesses")

That attitude from the IRS is irritating! The only way to use E-file is to pay one of the commercial outfits, sometimes in addition to their regular fee for tax software or tax preparation services. The the IRS sends nice reminders to "use e-File", which amounts to commercial advertising at public expense. I'll use a couple of stamps to file, not a credit card.

For an example of on-line filing designed for the taxpayer instead of the tax preparation industry, look here. Unlike e-File, this system is easy, fast, and free. If you pay Colorado taxes, there's no reason to pay for state tax software. A decent web browser is all you need!

Interesting side-note to the fault lubrication thing: where I live, Denver, there were a series of earthquakes in the '50's and '60's. Small ones, to be sure, but still, since this area hasn't had noticeable earthquakes in centuries, as far as anyone can tell, it made people wonder. Specifically, it made a bunch of mine owners wonder why their shafts kept collapsing and shifting -- on a regular schedule. Like, once a month, near the end of the month, there would be a quake.

It turns out that Rocky Mountain Arsenal was overproducing nerve gas for our enormous stores of chemical weapons that we're not supposed to have, so to get rid of them they had the bright idea of injecting them down into the earth a couple of miles. Tons, and tons, and tons, of nerve gas.

Talk about bad ideas in action...

If you do a googlesearch on injection-caused earthquakes there are hundreds of hits. This is one of the ones that talks about the Arsenal injection earthquakes.

That's nothing.
I thought of a MythTV box in a DORA office, playing Dora the Explorer videos and sending mail with Eudora to people in Eudora.

You really have no idea the amount of time and effort that would actually take. Killing animals in the wild is very labor intensive. In my homes state of Colorado alone last year, 56,462 elk were harvested (stats on page 3) and 41,665 deer were harvested (stats also on page 3).

The numbers vary from state to state, but a significant number of states have harvests that large or larger. The amount of effort and labor it takes to bring down that many animals is huge. If it was state run, it would be inefficient, animals would be wasted, and it would be a huge burden on the taxpayers. As is it's an income generator, run very efficiently, and results in many people getting cheap food while reducing an overpopulation of animals. What the hell is wrong with that?

You really have no idea the amount of time and effort that would actually take. Killing animals in the wild is very labor intensive. In my homes state of Colorado alone last year, 56,462 elk were harvested (stats on page 3) and 41,665 deer were harvested (stats also on page 3).

The numbers vary from state to state, but a significant number of states have harvests that large or larger. The amount of effort and labor it takes to bring down that many animals is huge. If it was state run, it would be inefficient, animals would be wasted, and it would be a huge burden on the taxpayers. As is it's an income generator, run very efficiently, and results in many people getting cheap food while reducing an overpopulation of animals. What the hell is wrong with that?

In Colorado, any place of public accomodation (Starbucks, ski areas, airports, etc.) posting a sign such as "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason" is begging to be sued. If the sign could be construed to be a veiled statement of an intent to discriminate against or intimidate unlawfully, that is enough (even if that wasn't the owner's intent). "No shirt, no shoes, no service!" or "Restrooms are for customer use only" are specific enough to avoid trouble, but a vague prohibition against whatever the management decides to not like this week is just begging for trouble.

If they ignored the juicy target of US wallets they'd be fine.

What I don't understand is why doesn't the US gov't just legalize it. They'd get giant taxes, they'd get to regulate it, and US companies could reap massive profits. It's idiotic to fight it - impossible and pointless. Of course, I feel the same way about recreational drugs, prostitution, and high explosives.

Internet gambling sites and telephone sports books are illegal under state and federal laws. Colorado law prohibits the transmission or reception of gambling information by any means. Federal law also prohibits the use of wire communications in interstate or foreign commerce for the placing of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers. In addition, the Colorado Constitution allows only certain types of "gambling," which does not include internet or telephone wagering.

So, now that we've established that it is in fact an illegal activity I'll move on to the next issue. The gov't does not go after a Costa Rican business for one reason: lack of jurisdiction.

The tax laws are quite flexible and easy to prosecute, that is why they use them.

Please don't get so angry with me. I didn't make these laws, and I don't agree with them. But you'd have to be fucking retarded to ignore laws that affect our rights.

Seriously, I don't know about every state but in the 3 states I've lived in gambling is highly regulated. Some states even have laws against friends wagering on cards at home, though generally giving a cut to the house is what it takes to make it illegal.

The states that might be most sympathetic (such as Nevada) don't want to cut into the casino's racket.

If you are interested, here is a good resource.

Internet gambling sites and telephone sports books are illegal under state and federal laws. Colorado law prohibits the transmission or reception of gambling information by any means. Federal law also prohibits the use of wire communications in interstate or foreign commerce for the placing of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers. In addition, the Colorado Constitution allows only certain types of "gambling," which does not include internet or telephone wagering.

I'm a big fan of government staying out of my life, but it is idiotic to delude ourselves about what is legal. Those fuckers are eroding our rights constantly. There's precious little that's legal anymore.

Here's a pretty good explanation:
http://www.csp.state.co.us/academy/ar797.htm

Amen. If you look at your phone bill, you'll see a variety of charges that the carriers have gotten the government to allow them to charge. There's the Federal Access Charge, the Federal Universal Service Fund, and a number of others that vary from state to state (e.g., see Colorado).

The money from many of these fees goes directly to the phone company to "enable them" to build networks to outlying areas, improve their infrastructure, etc. These fees are basically taxes and as such we the people have been paying for their expansion.

Copyright owner B cannot distribute it and claim that it *does* constitute part of an effective technological protection measure, or he has exceeded the terms of the license which allow him to distribute the work in the first place, and is guilty of copyright infringement.

How is the copyright owner bound by the license? Copyright Owner B has only consented to let Programmer A distribute his work. Copyright Owner B is not redistributing the GPL code. Copyright Owner B has never even had possession of the GPL code. Copyright infringement suit dismissed.

If Programmer A distributes said software *legally*, then that means Copyright Owner B has consented to the combination of his work, and programmer A's work into derived work Z.

No. Programmer A distributes said software legally so long as he provides the source code. Programmer A cannot bring suit for copyright infringement, assuming that this provision is enforceable at all, because by the terms of the GPL Programmer A has waived the anticircumvention enforcement powers under the GPL. Programmer A has no power to bind Copyright Owner B to that waiver.

As for this contention:
"Statutory definitions cannot be changed by contract. Period. If you and I sign a contract that defines our upcoming battle royale on the street in front of my house as a "sporting event", we can still assuredly be arrested for assault and battery upon each other (at the very least). This language expresses an objective that is analogous to that hypothetical."

It's quite obviously false, or every boxing match, football game, hockey game, etc, would end with arrests.

No. Explain why there are boxing commissions that regulate the sport. Explain why Mike Tyson needs a license to box. Explain why there is a statute that authorizes boxing in Colorado, for example.

You will be arrested for assault and battery if you have a private boxing match in front of your house, contract or not. You cannot change statutory definitions by contract.